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colinneagle writes "The acknowledged leader of once prolific movie piracy group IMAGiNE was sent to prison this week for five years, one of the longest sentences ever handed down for criminal copyright infringement. In addition to his prison term, Jeramiah Perkins, 40, of Portsmouth, Va., was sentenced to serve three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution. On Aug. 29, 2012, Perkins pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. According to the Department of Justice, Perkins was indicted along with three other defendants on April 18, 2012, for their roles in the IMAGiNE Group, an organized online piracy ring that sought to become the premier group to first release Internet copies of movies only showing in theaters. According to court documents, Perkins directed and participated in using receivers and recording devices in movie theaters to secretly capture the audio sound tracks of copyrighted movies. They then synchronized the audio files with illegally recorded video files to create completed movie files suitable for sharing over the Internet via BitTorrent file sharing technology."

The guy didn't harm anyone and we're locking him up in a cage for 5 years. Well I guess it serves him right for living in this stupid country. Being born here was the dumbest thing I've ever done and remaining here when I could leave is even dumber.

No one harmed? Somewhere there is a movie exec still driving a 2012 S-class Mercedes because he can't afford a new one. How can people live in such utter poverty?

Actually I messed this up. What I meant to say was "Somewhere there is a mistress of a movie exec still driving a 2012 S-class Mercedes because he can't afford a new one." The movie exec is still driving a Bentley.

Actually I do plan to escape from this fascist 'paradise' at some point. Perhaps if you didn't take every phrase 100% literally you might learn to understand what smarter people are actually saying. Just a tip that may serve you later in life.

Yeah, but if this guy hadn't been pirating then the movie industry wouldn't have lost out on billions of dollars of revenue and this recession thing might not have been so bad. After all, half the people without jobs lost them because of him.

Maybe it's just the fact that a physical structure (the movie theater) has been compromised in a way similar to breaking and entering, but I honestly think there's a difference between copying a DVD and setting up receivers in a movie theater to capture a proprietary audio broadcast.

He made more than $400,000 in profits from his illegal wiretapping. I think part of the defendant's actions do cross the line between intellectual property theft and criminal theft, especially because he set up PayPal accounts to accept payment for IMAGINE's releases.

Why should he feel free to profit off the expenses paid by the movie theater for retail space, electricity, equipment, and movie fees? At a certain point, even if the theater still has the item that is claimed to have been stolen, the defendant is stealing his for-profit content from the movie theater.

Maybe it's just the fact that a physical structure (the movie theater) has been compromised in a way similar to breaking and entering, but I honestly think there's a difference between copying a DVD and setting up receivers in a movie theater to capture a proprietary audio broadcast.

I don't. I think the dividing line is the commercial benefit. Nobody should ever see jail time for downloading copyrighted materials. But selling them without permission? How else are we supposed to provide them an incentive not to do this? On one hand, copyright has been distended all out of proportion, on the other hand these guys were selling current media and the more current the better. I have limited sympathy for them. The only sympathy I do have for them is that nobody should be placed into our priso

I don't really see it, maybe if it was an unique theme park ride that lost a lot of its "uniqueness" when people could see it without going there but the movie theater he recorded it in didn't suffer any particular negative effects - not any more than any other movie theater trying to show the same movie at least. Sure it's probably a violation of the cinema's rules like not bringing your own food and drinks, but we don't put people in prison for 5 years because of that. The clash is between this guy and th

He did make over $400,000 in profits. It's hard to argue he didn't take that money from theaters that were paying for the rights to show the movie. He didn't do this for altruistic reasons. He set up a business that was based on ripping off others content.

He did make over $400,000 in profits. It's hard to argue he didn't take that money from theaters that were paying for the rights to show the movie

Actually, it's very easy. He paid for entry to the cinemas. He never took a cent from the cinemas. He didn't prevent them from showing the movie. No one contemplating going to a cinema would stay at home and watch a lousy cam rip instead if you imply he reduced their market. Though if the movies were complete crap maybe some downloaded it as a preview and decided to skip it. But in that case, they probably would have just gone to another film and the cinemas still sold the same number of tickets on average.

The fact that he could make such a profit tells us the content is over priced to begin with. That he could pay for technology to capture the content, deliver it and still make a profit tells the whole story. The entertainment industry creates copyright infringers by demanding far too much for content. Lower the price, you'll eliminate the infringers. Of course, you can't tell anyone that they are asking too much for something they own, even if it's incredibly easy to steal, like content.
The war on drugs s

Since when? Oh, right, never, because someone has to be willing to pay the price you demand; the whole idea in capitalism is that no single person or entity gets to decide these things. The movie industry gets to inflate its prices because the government gives them assistance, and apparently that assistance now includes the use of prisons (which are supposed to exist to keep us safe from dangerous people, not to keep obsolete business models alive).

"Since forever, with the exception of communist countries and Nixon's wage-price freeze in the seventies, and imminent domain. I can charge what I want. That doesn't mean you'll pay it, though."

Depending on the personal opinion, it may or may not be ethical to charge whatever you want, but doing so's not a property of the Adam Smith style "Free market", particularly in this case. (And a lot of people seem to be assuming it is - I'm not sure if you are, but since you mention communism in your counter-argumen

Depending on the personal opinion, it may or may not be ethical to charge whatever you want, but doing so's not a property of the Adam Smith style "Free market", particularly in this case.

I have no respect for Adam Smith or any other economist. Economics is the astrology of the 21st century. There isn't an economist who ever lived that there wasn't another economist calling him a gold-studded liar.

As I said, just because I demand a million dollars for a 1972 Ford Pinto doesn't mean anyone has to or is will

Perhaps "information should be free, while the container may or may not be"? Because the Internet is full of content released for free by their authors

Content on the internet has no container, which was my point -- sell give your novels away and sell books. Give your songs away and sell CDs. The only downside to a producer for "free" is if your wares suck, nobody's going to buy them, unlike how it is now, where I may hear a nice 30 second snippt of a song that sucks donkey balls.

Talk about a slanted description. He set up video cameras and microphones in a theater. That is not wiretapping, that is copyright infringement in the worst case.

breaking and entering

Nobody is accused of that.

intellectual property

Propaganda term.

criminal theft

No such thing happened here.

he set up PayPal accounts

So?

accept payment for IMAGINE's releases

Did a judge decide that IMAGiNE was not engaged in fair use? See, long before our copyright system was hijacked and turned into a weapon aimed at the Internet, we relied on judges to decide if an act of copying was legal or not. You know, back when copyrights wer

Otherwise you use the words "Illegal wiretapping", "criminal theft". Makes him sound really evil. But I didn't see those words in TFA either. Though I don't doubt the *AAs would use them. Did you just make them up?

I don't see how anyone could make more than pocket change distributing movies online. Who'd pay? You can get them free in a minute if you want. Especially since it sounds like he was making cam rips in cinemas. I wouldn't watch a cam rip if you paid

I am so glad our Justice Department is busy locking up such horrible and dangerous criminals. Thank goodness the Department of Justice is hard at work locking up these criminal masterminds. Now we can all feel safer.

They go to great lengths to ensure the content industry fat cats don't lose any money, because how else could they afford their eight figure salaries if a few people get their disgusting hands on their content without paying? They might have to go down to... *gasp* seven figure salaries, ugh

You do know these corporations are publicly owned? That people who work for a living have 401K retirement programs that share in the profits of these films? Unlike so many that simply downloaded films for their own use this dude had a business going where he was making hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit. He is the type of pirate who the criminal copyright laws were written for originally. He belongs in prison.

Although I agree that commercial infringement like this deserves the slammer, I don't agree that anyone lost any money. The only way copyright infringement costs sales is if the book or movie sucks and people are warned that it sucks. On the other hand, there are many fine books and films that will lose money because nobody heard of them. Nobody but bad authors ever lost money from copyright infringement (in this case I'd say the money the guy made belongs to the studios) but many artists starve from obscur

It's really hard to say but the way I always look at it is that if someone downloads a movie from someplace like a torrent then you can't say if they would have paid for it or not. On the other hand here we have people that did pay for it and the money did not go to the studios. You can't really say they didn't lose money because technically any money he made was lost to the studios.

In this case I agree, folks were paying for these downloads. I mentioned in another comment that this was in fact wrong, that the money paid should have gone to the studios. TPB is entirely different; studies all show that piracy sells content, although counterfeiting does not. Piracy and counterfeiting are two didfferent things.

That's the catch. If you copy a movie you aren't stealing it you are violating copyright. If you make money from it though then the money you made is considered stolen since you don't own the copyright to the movie you sold. Get it?

Yeah, the fine is surprisingly sensible compared to the prison sentence and the usual monetary penalties sought by the copyright industry. I can only assume that the terrible prison sentence was intended to be the bulk of the penalty and without that the fine would have been much much higher.

So you hate China so much that you would prefer to live in a US prison? Being poor in the US is also quite unpleasant even if you are not one of the unlucky ones snared by the ubiquitous prison system.

To most civilized parts of the world U.S. prisons look positively barbaric, though. Most first-world countries have managed to figure out how to run a prison system without high levels of rape, for one thing.

It's not that we in the US can't run a prison without rape, it's that as a society we don't WANT to.

We LIKE it that prisoners are raped - we joke about it.

Prison officials like it too. They have hundreds of inmates for each guard. Bad odds. So you encourage racism in prison so the prisoners are fighting and killing each other based on racial hatreds instead of fighting and killing the people holding them captive.

And in many other parts of the world, a US prison would look like an overcrowded, mis-managed and dangerous endeavor run by a for-profit company somewhat akin to a meat-grinder. Fairly tame petty offenders go in one end, hardened criminals created through exposure to unsupervised hardened gang culture come out the other end...

...And keep coming back for more due to choices they wouldn't have made if they hadn't gotten wrapped up in the prison gang culture as a matter of survival. Conditions in US prisons

You must be an American to write such an arrogant and ignorant statement. But that's okay, you get modded up by your fellow countrymen. USA #1, USA #1, Freedom, Freedom, Better in a US prison that in one of them foreign mudhuts. Freedom Freeeeeeeeedom.

You must be some other country that blames the US because you are too lazy to get your own shit in gear and find blaming others makes it seem like it's not your fault your country sucks.

Well I've never been to Africa, but I've spent quite a bit of time in Cuba and Laos. The average Cuban made around $10-$15 per month. The average Lao made around $70-$100 per month for working 60-100 hours per week. So, yes, I do think I have some understanding of what third world poverty is like.

Poor is relative. On a global scale, nobody at all in the United States is poor.

It's not clear what point you're trying to make, because you seem to be contradicting yourself. Poverty is always relative. If you want to compare levels of poverty you cannot take into account values like "32.7% of Indians live on less then $1.25 per day" but need to consider the goods people can actually buy for the given amount of money in their country.

People who are about to starve to death in the US might fare well with the same amount of money in some rural part of India and, vice versa, an amount of money that might allow you to survive without problems in some part of the world would not allow you to survive at all in the US without the help of some charity. Such comparisons are completely pointless, because people have to survive where they are living, of course.

It's not clear what point you're trying to make, because you seem to be contradicting yourself. Poverty is always relative. If you want to compare levels of poverty you cannot take into account values like "32.7% of Indians live on less then $1.25 per day" but need to consider the goods people can actually buy for the given amount of money in their country.

That $1.25 is adjusted for purchasing power.

In other words, other people arent the idiots you think that they are just because what they are telling you doesnt jive with the shit that you yourself cannot back up with facts. Its your view of the world that is wrong.

You doubt it, but then provide a citation to it being adjusted in another post.

Also, you should have assumed that it was adjusted because you shouldnt assume that people are idiots just because what they are telling you doesnt jive with the shit that you yourself cannot back up with facts.

Note that this is the second time that I am telling you the boldfaced part.

The problem isnt that I didnt provide a citation. The problem is that you were never in a position to stand firm on your beliefs because th

I am sure he would rather live in the US and follow our very straight forward laws. And from my conversations with people from China, I would much rather be poor in the US than live like 99% of Chinese citizens.

âoeI have to get dressed so that I donâ(TM)t look too lazy when I go out to pay the gardener. Woe is me!â

"There's nothing to drink at home except an unlimited supply of clean water from the tap. Pity me!"

I grew up poor in the US. I didn't know a single person who starved to death. I didn't know a single person who was "disappeared" by the government. I didn't know a single person who died from parasites, or lost a limb in the factory they worked in as a child.

This "it could be worse" school of thought is currently being used by the Powers That Be / Monied Interests as an excuse for a large decline in overall standard of living. I guess what I'm saying is, sure, it could be worse. But why isn't it better?

When you mention these third world maladies are you speaking from personal experience? I have actually lived in poor third world countries for years. I speak from personal experience. Have you lived in poor third world countries?

Your characterization of the average American is appalling. Most families can not afford a BMW for a parent, much less a kid. Just about the wealthiest person in the world lives in India. Why not make the same claim about Indians whining about their parents not buying them a BMW?

Get a sense of perspective. Try living amongst the people you criticize before you criticize them. Just because YOU happen to be surrounded by very healthy economic circumstances, that does not mean most are.

I grew up about as poor as it gets in America. I have frieds who grew up poor in less developed parts of the world. We had it great here compared to most of the world! And most of the whiners on/. are suburbanites who have never known any kind of poverty, and are so ill-informed that they weigh stuff-they've-read about poverty in America against stuff-they've-read about other places and come up with this sort of BS.

Agreed. I have lived in some very poor countries even by world standards and I never personally met or even heard of anyone locally actually starving to death. Being poor is unpleasant no matter what country you are in. By "poor" I mean that you only make enough money to just barely survive in whatever country you are living in. In the US that might mean $5000/year, even though that would be the equivalent of about 28 years of income for the average Cuban when I lived there. The cost of living varies by cou

Nicer? I'm guessing you've never actually left your cushy first world paradise to discover that life in other countries is actually quite nice, and it can require less hours as a wage slave worker drone to survive. Immigrants who come here are often very surprised at how depressing life here actually is. Some are willing to grin and bare it because they have dollar signs in their eyes. Some work here for a year in very unpleasant conditions and then go back to their home country with great relief to get out

So you hate China so much that you would prefer to live in a US prison? Being poor in the US is also quite unpleasant even if you are not one of the unlucky ones snared by the ubiquitous prison system.

WTF? I am poor. I live on $10k a year. I live check to check. I have no savings. I do have a place to live, I do have enough food to survive decently.

I am living decently. I can't complain. If i don't have enough food, there is food banks, places I can get meals. If I need clothes and don't want to use any of my own money on them, I can go to various places to get clothes free, or cheap.

I am poor and it is not unpleasant. Sure, sometimes it sucks, like i wish i could upgrade my video card, lo

But it isn't like many people in prison are there for crimes they didn't know they were committing. It is pretty easy to stay out of prison. Even of you don't agree with the laws, it isn't hard to follow them.

Would you listen to yourself for a minute? You're seriously comparing the minor corruption we have here in the States with life in a Communist Dictatorship?

Think for just a moment why china might not have so many people in prison!

Specially equipped âoeexecution trucksâ should be used nationwide by courts to execute criminals immediately after sentencing, the countryâ(TM)s highest court has recommended, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.

The Beijing News daily said the high court of China's Liaoning province had recently bought such a vehicle for 400,000 yuan (48,300 dollars). "Many large cities have permanent execution grounds, but in smaller cities it is difficult to carry out death sentences, so this is why we have these mobile execution units,â a government official was quoted.

A non-wikipedia [fleetowner.com] cite, even, though you can find it there too.

If our government supplied crack, heroin, and firearms there'd be no deficit. If the government was a drug dealer, you'd certainly know it. Peddle your conspiracy theories to someone else. The government of the United States is many things... incompetent, lazy, self-serving, pedantic, and misguided... but it's not a criminal organization that sells illegal substances to people.

I'm sorry, but one of the rules of/. is that no poster may state that somewhere in the world is worse than the USA. Starving children in a North Korean Stalinist gulag are way better off than any American child eating Doritos and watching Honey Boo Boo. Oddly enough, it seems like none of the Slashdotters who have this opinion seem willing to move away from the USA to somewhere 'better' like China.

I agree, they broke the law and should be dealt with. Five years though? Seems to be something that really should be dealt with through financial punishments, and perhaps a pretty light custodial/supervisory sentence. Five years in prison, followed by three years of supervision, seems way over the top for even wilful copyright infringement of the kind they were engaged in.

Any idea what the motive was here? Were they making money out of this, or was it just for bragging rights?

That is what I find missing from the story, what I remember from the group name is that they were into cams and telesyncs, not proper DVD/Blu-Ray copies. Beyond the novelty value these things are only salable in the most primitive regions of the world where people still have CRT's.

AND if he made such a huge amount of money out of it, why isn't the fine hire? The criminal justice system (this is NOT a civil case like most other cases we hear about) doesn't have high fines BUT it does like to strip criminals

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W'swhere they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army aftercommitting your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty uglylooking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Fatherrapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! Andthey was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on thebench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanestfather raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to meand said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay$50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?"And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the benchthere, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till Isaid, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand,and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing,father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on thebench...